What Are the Advantages of Using Channel Management Software?

For vacation rental agencies, finding a perpetual stream of guests can be challenging. To succeed at offering vacation rentals, you need to promote your rentals through a variety of channels. The more channels you utilize, the more clientele you can reach.

Yet, with literally hundreds of available channels, managing all of your listings can be incredibly time-consuming, resulting in many rental agencies posting fewer listings than desired. Channel managers make the process easy by allowing you to seamlessly manage all listing in a single location, thus substantially reducing the time and effort of marketing.

To generate ample business, you need to rely on a range of channels.

Channel Management Software for Vacation Rental Managers

As explained in this post, "Benefits of a Vacation Rental Channel Manager", channel managers can benefit rental agencies tremendously, and in order to thrive in the competitive world of tourism, channel management is critical. Some of the key benefits include:

• Saving money

Information at Chron.com states the following: "The U.S. Small Business Administration recommends spending 7 to 8 percent of your gross revenue for marketing and advertising if you're doing less than $5 million a year in sales and your net profit margin - after all expenses - is in the 10 percent to 12 percent range. Some marketing experts advise that start-up and small businesses usually allocate between 2 and 3 percent of revenue for marketing and advertising, and up to 20 percent if you're in a competitive industry. Still other marketing experts counsel a range between 1 percent and 10 percent, and even more depending on how long you've been in business, competitive activity and what you can afford."

While there different opionions on this topic, it is clear that marketing consumes a significant portion of total revenue. With hundreds of potential channels to promote your vacation rentals through, managing an effective marketing campaign can become incredibly costly and labor-intensive. With Kigo's channel manager system, you can significantly reduce the time spent marketing, while enhancing the lead generation from listings, allowing you to reduce your marketing budget and generate more revenue.

• Saving time

Kigo's channel management software provides a variety of functions to streamline your online listings. With functions that allow you to manage rates, inventory, departure times, arrival times, and more, you can manage all listings simultaneously and dramatically improve efficiency.

• Reaching more customers

When managing your listings manually, the time-constraints inevitably limit how many channels you can utilize. With a channel manager, you can simultaneously manage as many channels as you like, allowing you to reach a much wider network of customers than before.

With improved lead generation, your rentals will be a magnet for tourists.

• Improving your reputation

When renting a property, trust is incredibly important to consumers. Living away from home, even for a weekend, can be an anxiety-ridden experience, and people need to have faith that the property they're renting will be comfortable and safe. Online distribution through channel managers provides you with the ability to promote your rentals through a range of reputable websites that consumers already trust. Websites like Roomorama and Trip Advisor draw in a lot of traffic, while having a favorable reputation among customers, which will ensure your listings are more successful.

• Automating tasks

Many of the basic tasks required by vacation renters can be automated with a channel manger system to speed up the process. As the Kigo article "5 Regrets of Every Property Manager" says, "No one's dying breath is that they wish they had spent more time in the office, spent more time with their nose in a spreadsheet. Automating reporting and emailing can save hours from your working hours every day."

Channel managers provide functions to automatically adjust pricing due to season, holidays, and time of month, as well as automatically updating discounts and specials. It can also automate payments, invoicing, reservations, cancelations, and financial reporting, thus greatly reducing your workload.

Key Takeaway - Choosing the Right Channel Management Software

Vacation rental property managers can learn a great lesson from the hotel industry when it comes to choosing the best channel manager system. According to an article in tnooz, "For years we have seen a race to the bottom in the rapidly developing world of channel management software and new channel management systems seem to pop up like mushrooms. There are at least 50 different providers active in the market space, and each system seems to come with a lower price.

Whilst many of these tools may seem incredibly cheap, most of them are performing far below hotelier expectations. Using the tools is cumbersome, and logically hoteliers continue the search for better channel management tools."

Kigo channel management software is specifically built for vacation rental property managers. It amplifies the promotion and distribution of your vacation rental property while reducing the administrative work. Put simply, you put in less and get out more. But best of all, through integration with your property management system it can also automate payments, invoicing, reservations, cancellations, and financial reporting, thus greatly reducing your workload.

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